TRAVELOG: Linfield Industrial Park – Linfield, Pennsylvania

While on a hunt for Pennhurst State School and Hospital (originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic), me and Ahmadi ended up running across Linfield Industrial Park and Limerick Nuclear Plant…

It is my firm belief that whenever you step outside the boundaries of experience that society considers 'normal', you step into a cognitive shift that changes you. Some comprehend that the fears that they've heard from the people around them are completely unfounded. Others realize that this new thing that they've done - this new place that they've traveled to, or new moment or social exchange outside of the norm, has opened the door to an understanding that they didn't have access to before.

The enormity of engaging with an experience that such a small percentage of the population has, and chooses to incorporate into themselves, cannot help but heal us all with a bigger understanding of ourselves and the life and world around us.

Walking 'outside the box', as it were, can be such a profound and terrifying experience that shakes the foundation of someone's faith/belief that the only response is to run back inside; to slam everything shut and deny the entire experience that caused the shift.

Here the first seeds of Cognitive Dissonance begin to germinate.

Those who are strong enough in themselves to take that step into an adventurous experience or realization give themselves a gift that cannot be received any other way.

When someone starts to walk this path, they begin to feel the first flurry of honest gratitude at being allowed to experience the world with less judgement, less fear, and more joy at the mystery and beauty of it all.

We may never reach perfection, but we can strive to be healthy representatives of this large blue marble that we live on.